Saturday, November 23, 2013

The bellies of the
clouds sagged low and heavy with water, and a steady rain fell on Hannah, Jeb
and I as we dragged our tired feet up the wet road to the top of Phnom Sampeau,
a hill in central Cambodia. Rivulets of water ran down the mountain, trying
weakly to wash us back down from the muddy road where we’d begun the climb. The
little light that the sun offered at that early hour was swallowed up by the
thickness of the clouds, leaving us in a dark twilight.

Informational signage
was non-existent along the way, but coming upon an offshoot of the road, we
decided to see where it would take us. Eventually, a temple rose out of the
damp, dreary forest. At first there didn’t seem to be anyone around, but then
we spotted a young monk, clad in a deep maroon robe, with a smoldering
cigarette hanging off his lower lip. He was sweeping the porch of a small
building, and glanced up at us through the rain.

“Killing Caves?” we
asked shyly, not knowing if our presence at the temple was intrusive. He gave a
curt nod and pointed to his right, then lowered his head and continued with his
work. We uncertainly began to walk in the direction in which he had gestured,
and came to a narrow path. Is this the way? we kept asking ourselves, looking around and
trying to find some remnants of a sign indicating that we had indeed arrived at
the Killing Caves.

I was looking about,
surveying the drenched greenery around me, when I heard a grunting sound behind
me. I turned to see another monk who had come forward to reaffirm that we were
heading in the right direction. He, too, was adorned in that a maroon robe, but
was older than the first monk we’d seen. At first I could barely make out his
features, but as my eyes focused in the dim light, I could see that his face
was disfigured: his black beady eyes were dwarfed by his bulbous nose that
spread wide across his cheeks, rippling and protruding like a small mountain
range down his long face. His ears were small but inflated with small balloons
of flesh.

He grunted again,
gesturing for us to continue down the narrow path. I turned, not wanting to
stare at his deformities for fear of offending him, and followed behind Hannah
and Jeb as we continued. Soon we came upon a slippery flight of metal stairs,
leading down into the Killing Caves themselves. The black walls of the cave
loomed eerily over us, soaking up the little light that made it through the
dark clouds. We could barely see as we slowly descended into the cave and
landed on a white tiled floor. The cave swallowed up all sound, except for a
strong, steady drip, drip, drip
of lone drops of water, falling into a metal funnel from the roof of the cave
high above. Like a drumming metronome, the drips seemed to be meting out
eternity for the bones that call the cave home.

The Killing Caves earn
their name from their horrific past. The Khmer Rouge, who brutally ruled
Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, liberally murdered innocent people in fear that
someone, somewhere, was trying to oust their regime. In less than four years,
about 2 million people—roughly a quarter of Cambodia’s population at the
time—died due to starvation, disease, and exhaustion at forced labor camps, and
by torture and murder at the hands of the government. The Killing Caves,
located just outside Battambang, Cambodia, are one of many sites where innocent
people were brought to die after they had been tortured into false confessions.
Thousands of men, women, and children were bludgeoned to death, and their
bodies were tossed down into the cave, creating a mass grave.

Inside the cave was so
dim that I wouldn’t have known what was encased in the large, glass-enclosed
shrine, save for the research I’d done beforehand. Piled in the temple-like
glass house were the countless bones and skulls of some of the Cambodians that
had been brutally murdered above, and carelessly dumped below. Although I couldn’t
see the contents of that shrine, the knowledge of what rested before my eyes
was more than enough to have a tremendous impact upon my psyche. Emotion rushed
through me as I tried to comprehend the terror of the atrocities committed a
few short decades ago upon that very ground. I thought about the victims and
their families, and the killers and their families too. What would it have been
like, to be on either end of the jagged edges of the sugar palm leaves
sometimes used to slit throats? My mind was trying to comprehend the
incomprehensible. Unable to speak or make comment, I stood in silence,
listening to the loud, metallic drip of falling water.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Rising out of the
misty jungle surrounding Siem Reap, Cambodia, three immense arched towers
dominate the immediate landscape. The towers of Angkor Wat are imposing,
mysterious and awe-inspiring.

Having done some
research, I figured I knew more-or-less what I would come upon when I visited
Angkor. As I imagine is often the case when visiting a wonder of the world, my expectations were blown away.

Walking from the road
to the Wat itself took a good 20 minutes of meandering along an immense,
half-mile-long stone corridor that crossed a huge man-made moat and passed
under the thick wall surrounding the perimeter of the temple. And this was just the walkway!

Angkor Wat is the most
impressive structure I’ve ever seen, and my awe only increases when I think
about how it was constructed hundreds of years ago, by hand. The temple is
covered inside and out by intricate, beautiful carvings, and the architecture
is awesome. It blows me away to think that humans are capable of such
incredible feats.

Walking through the
second wall and into the temple, I climbed the stairs up to the heart of the temple from which jut the three towers of Angkor that loom ominously,
powerfully above visitors who are dwarfed by their size. Their effect was made
more dramatic by the fact that it was a drizzly day; the towers appeared almost black against the wet gray sky, the contrast adding to their
formidable appearance.

The final stone staircase to the tippity top of the Wat was slick and impossibly steep. Clutching the rickity handrail, I dragged myself to the pinnacle of Angkor. The view was
incredible. Looking out over the misty forest, I tried to imagine how the
surrounding land would’ve looked like hundreds of years ago when Angkor was
surrounded by a thriving city, and what it would have felt like to be the
god-king of such a civilization. No wonder he felt like a god, keeping an eye
on his kingdom from such a staggeringly impressive structure (that was, no
less, covered in gold leaf at the time of his rule). I let the humming strength
of the structure wash over me as I leaned out of a stone window, breathing in
the cool fresh air, soaking in awe.

About Me

I earned my Masters in Teaching from UVM in May 2012, which was the same month that I moved to Thailand to begin teaching. I teach in an English immersion program at a Thai school in Ubon Ratchathani, and here you will find the story of my life abroad.